


roll with it

by avalonjoan



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Amputation, M/M, Military, Serious Injuries, Trauma, my explanation for the dogtags in the huddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 10:19:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18247844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avalonjoan/pseuds/avalonjoan
Summary: Kent gets a call from his boyfriend's mother.  Something's happened in Afghanistan.  Dan's coming home, but not how he was planning to.I started thinking about why Kent has dogtags on in the Huddles, and ended up with this.





	roll with it

**Author's Note:**

> roll with it (ani difranco)
> 
> and it's your world  
> that comes crashing down  
> when the big boys  
> wanna throw their weight around  
> but just roll with it baby  
> make it your career  
> keep the home fires burning  
> til America is in the clear

Kent’s sitting in his stall about to put on his jersey when his phone rings.  He doesn’t know the number, but at this point, he picks up every call he gets.  He’s seen the country codes +965 and +974 enough to know them at a glance (Kuwait and Qatar, respectively), but he doesn’t recognize this number, and it’s coming from somewhere in the US.  Stepping over his gear, he goes to a relatively quiet corner of the locker room to answer. “Hello?”

“Hi, Kent.” It’s Dan’s mother. “How are you?”

Kent covers his other ear to block out the guys’ chatter. “Doing okay--about to go on the ice. You?”

There’s a pause. “Why don’t I call you after the game?”

“I--” Something isn’t right. “What’s going on?”

He hears Susan draw in a deep breath. “First of all--Dan’s okay. I didn’t talk to him personally, but they said that he’s awake and talking.”  She pauses. “His convoy hit a roadside bomb. They flew him to the military hospital in Germany. He’s got a concussion--a head injury. They had to do surgery on his right leg, but it was too damaged for them to save it.”

Kent steadies himself against the wall.  He chest feels like he’s just taken the worst hit of his life.  He tries to speak, but only a shuddering breath comes out.

“They’re bringing him to Maryland, to Walter Reed.  His flight lands at 10 AM tomorrow.” There’s a few moments of silence. “You still there?”

“Yeah,” Kent manages.  He feels his knees going weak beneath him. “I just--I--he’s okay, otherwise?”

“That’s what they told me.  Here’s the thing,” Susan leads, “We’re in Hawaii.  It’s going to take us a while to get to Maryland, probably not until tomorrow night.  I’ll let you know how he’s doing when we get there.”

“I--I should be there.”

He can hear the motherly smile in Susan’s voice.  “I know it might be tricky to do without the team finding out about you--he’ll understand.  You’ll get there when you get there.”

Kent nods.  “Okay. Thanks for calling.”

“Of course.  Have a good game, honey.”

As soon as he hangs up, Kent sinks to the floor.  He’s breathing too fast, he knows, and his vision’s going dark at the edges.  His phone slips out of his hand and bounces on the rubber floor. 

“Hey.  Hey, hey hey.” Jeff’s at his side, grabbing him by shoulder and giving a shake.  “What’s going on, bud?”

Kent squeezes his eyes shut. “Get Coach,” he pants, teeth gritted.

Jeff shouts to someone behind him before starting to undo the Velcro on Kent’s chest protector.  Kent lets himself be moved, sitting up a little to allow Jeff to pull the protector over his head.  “Take some deep breaths, yeah?” Jeff instructs, putting a hand flat on Kent’s chest, overlying Dan’s tags.  “You’re gonna be okay.”

He’s doing his best to breathe when Claude shows up, kneeling beside him.   “Parson, what happened?” Claude’s voice is gentler than Kent’s ever heard it.

“I--my--” Kent looks around the room.  His whole team, their coach, the trainer--everyone is staring at him.  There’s just no way around this. He swallows. “My boyfriend got blown up in Afghanistan and they’re flying him back to the US.  I--I’m sorry--I just--”

There’s a fraction of a second where Claude looks shocked, but he hides it almost immediately.  “You go do what you have to do,” he says softly, “I’ll let the officials know you’re a last-minute scratch.” He stands. “We’ll be thinking of you tonight.”

He leaves, and the rest of the team takes over.  Jeff helps Kent out of the rest of his gear. Someone hands him his pregame suit and his coat.  Another guy offers to call him an Uber. No one asks for any details. When he leaves, the room is silent.  “Thanks, guys,” he says, voice low. “Skate hard tonight.”

The ride to the airport is too slow, and Kent’s frantically trying to figure out when the next flight to DC is.  It’s going to take at least 3 hours to fly there, plus the time change, and he’ll probably just sleep in the airport before he goes to the hospital, and he doesn’t actually know how to get to the hospital but he’s just going to take a cab even if it’s a thousand dollars, he just needs to get there.  

There’s an 8:30 flight that will get him in to DC at 12:20 in the morning.  He books it. It’s a good thing they’re not playing in Canada--Kent’s passport is in his suitcase, which is at the hotel.  There wasn’t anything there that he couldn’t live without, although his phone is going to run out of juice sooner or later.  

After checking in and passing through security, Kent finds a spot by the gate in the airport’s attempt at a brewpub.  He has his first drink in two years--a double whiskey on the rocks that he pays for in cash--when the urge to call Jack strikes him.  It’s been two years since he crashed the party at Jack’s house and burned that bridge. He won’t be surprised if Jack blocked his number, but he tries anyway.  The phone rings, then goes to voicemail. He tries again, rubbing tears out of his eyes with the heel of his hand. Voicemail again. He texts Jack.

_ It’s an emergency _

_ Please call me _

_ I’m sorry _

He takes a sip of whiskey, rolling it around his tongue, thinking of who else he can call.  He doesn’t even know what he wants: someone to listen, or comfort, or distract. After careful deliberation, he ends up playing Angry Birds until he hears the overhead page to board the plane.

The flight isn’t terrible--he sleeps for most of it, the whiskey hitting harder than it used to.  When he gets off at Reagan, he looks around for decent place to crash for the rest of the night. There are a few relatively comfortable-looking chairs by one of the windows, and as he’s trying to find the best position to sleep in, he feels his phone vibrate in his chest pocket.  

It’s Jack. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“What’s going on?”

Kent tells the whole story, wiping tears off of his cheeks by the end of it.  “I’m sorry for calling, I just--if felt like when you--”

Jack’s voice is patient. “It’s okay. I get it.”  He’s quiet for a moment. “Where did you say you were?”

“DCA.”

“I’m in Georgetown.  Bitty had a grad school interview so we came down for the weekend.” Kent knows where this is going; Jack’s too logical for his own good sometimes. “Come stay with us.”

Kent shakes his head. “I can’t do that.”

“Our room has a little living area with a pull-out couch,” Jack goes on.  “I’m not letting you spend the night alone in the airport, Kenny.”

Jack gives him the address, and Kent calls the Uber, dozing off as soon as he gets inside.  At the hotel, he finds Jack’s room, tapping quietly on the door. Jack lets him in, hair sticking up, looking half-asleep himself. Without saying anything, he pulls Kent into a hug, cradling the back of his head with one hand.  Kent grabs onto the material of Jack’s shirt, leaning onto him a little too much as he starts sobbing, his first real cry since all this started. 

“It’s okay, Kenny,” Jack murmurs, guiding him backwards into the room.  There’s a lamp on the end table giving the room a warm glow, and Jack’s already pulled out the couch.  They sit, and Jack keeps holding him until his breath starts hitching as he tries to stop crying. “Can you take some slow breaths with me?” Jack asks.

Kent does his best to breathe with Jack, finally calming down enough to get a few words out. “Thank you. For--for everything.” He shakes his head, tears coming again. “Especially after what I said, how I acted--you didn’t have to--I’m so sorry, Jack.”

“Let’s deal with one crisis at a time, eh?” Jack says with a little smile, running his thumb across Kent’s cheek.  “Get some sleep.”

Kent nods.  Jack goes back to the bedroom, closing the door quietly behind him.  Kent’s not about to sleep in his suit, so he strips down to his underwear, folding his clothes and setting them on the nearby chair.  Pulling the spare blanket over himself, he falls asleep before he has a chance to worry about anything else.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up to voices in the other room. 

“We’re talking about the same Kent Parson who gave you the panic attack that was so bad you threw up, right?”  Eric’s accent is a little more pronounced than Kent remembers, but he’s also (understandably) upset.

“Kent and I--obviously, we’ve got a lot to work through, but this--I’ll explain at breakfast, okay?” Jack lowers his voice. “Just--please be nice--he’s had a rough day.”

No one speaks for a few seconds. “Fine.”

The door opens and the two men come out, Eric looking standoffish and Jack looking concerned. “How did you sleep?”

“Like a rock,” Kent replies, sitting up.  He grabs his phone off of the end table, but the screen doesn’t turn on.  His heart starts pounding. “What time is it?”

“About nine,” Jack replies.

Kent throws the blanket off, pulling on his pants and looking for where he put his shoes in the dark last night. “They said he’s getting in at ten, I have to figure out how to get there--”

“Hey.”  Jack gently takes hold of Kent’s shoulders, keeping him from flitting about for a few seconds.  “He’s going to need time to get off the plane, get settled, there’s probably a ton of administrative stuff because it’s the Army.” Kent nods. “Why don’t you shower and I’ll grab you something from downstairs.  You still like those things that call themselves ‘chocolate croissants’ but definitely aren’t?”

Kent chuckles.  “I can’t believe you remember that.”

“And I can’t believe you still eat them.  They’re a crime against actual French pastry.”  Honest to god, Jack looks happy, like he did when they were kids, joking around and making fun of each other.  Kent didn’t realize how much he missed that before this moment. 

Jack and Eric go downstairs, and Kent showers, amazed at how much better he feels after.  He puts his suit back on, and when he steps out of the bathroom, Jack and Eric are sitting on the re-folded couch, with a cup of coffee and a pastry on the end table.  Eric looks less hostile, but Kent’s not about to start a conversation with him anytime soon. 

Jack raises an eyebrow. “You didn’t pack a change of clothes?”

“I didn’t pack anything,” Kent replies, sitting in the armchair.  “I kind of panicked and went right to the airport from the rink.”

Standing, Jack hands his coffee to Eric and goes into the bedroom.  “Fortunately,” he calls, “it looks like we’re still the same size.” He comes back and tosses a t-shirt at Kent. “Unfortunately, this is the last clean thing I have with me.”

He doesn’t have to unfold the shirt to see that it’s got the Falconers logo on it. He smiles at Jack. “If I have to.” He goes back to the bathroom to change, coming out in the interesting mix of suit pants and jacket with the tee underneath.  “Not a bad look, right?”

Jack smiles and, honest to god, Kent thinks he sees Eric smile as well.  When he sits down to eat, Jack starts detailing Kent’s itinerary for the day. “It looks like you can go from Dupont Circle to the hospital on the Red Line,” he says, pulling out a step-by-step list because of course Jack would have one, “and then you have to go to a certain gate at the hospital to fill out some paperwork to get on base, and then you should be okay. And neither of us use the same phone charger as you, but we can find somewhere along the way to buy one.”  

“We?”

“I’m walking you to the station,” Jack says, as if it were obvious.

Kent finishes eating, attempts to brush his teeth with some toothpaste on his finger, and puts his dress shirt in a shopping bag to take with him.  He’s putting on his coat when Jack kisses Eric goodbye. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

“See you then.”  Eric turns to Kent. “I hope everything’s alright with your boyfriend.”

Nodding, Kent gives an appreciative smile. “Thank you.  Sorry for crashing your weekend.”

Eric shrugs. “Just don’t make a habit of it, okay?”

Jack leads Kent out of the hotel, following directions to the station on his phone.  They stop at a pharmacy and buy a charger. Kent toys with the idea of finding somewhere to charge it before he goes to the hospital, but he’d much rather just get there as soon as possible.  When they arrive at Dupont Circle, Kent turns to Jack and takes his hand.

“Thank you,” he says, “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“Slept in the airport with a dead phone,” Jack offers with a joking smile.  “I hope he recovers quickly. And don’t forget to look after yourself, too.”

Kent nods.  “Thanks. And,” he hesitates, “want to do dinner next time we’re in the same city?”

“I’d like that.” Jack pulls Kent into a hug. “Now get out of here.” He nudges Kent toward the escalators, and Kent waves as Jack disappears from view.

The ride doesn’t take too long, but Kent wishes that he bought a newspaper or something else to distract himself.  He plays with the cord of the phone charger, wrapping it around his fingers and watching the coil unravel after. It feels like there’s something vibrating in his abdomen and like someone’s squeezing his chest.  He wonders if he might need medical attention himself by the time he arrives.

At the base, he follows the instructions that Jack gave him, going to Gate 1 to fill out paperwork for access.  He approaches the man at the desk. “I’m here to see Sergeant Daniel Brennan.”

“Do you know his floor or room number?” The man, whose name tag says MP John Harris, looks like he’s going to give Kent a hard time, like he knows that Kent is out of his element.

Kent swallows. “He just arrived this morning--I don’t know where he is.”

“Alright.”  Officer Harris pulls out a piece of paper and hands it to Kent. “I’ll take your license and call over there, make sure you’re on his visitor list.”

Fumbling in his pockets, Kent pulls out his wallet and gives the man his license. Officer Harris looks at the ID, then back at Kent. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he says under his breath, glancing at Kent while lifting the phone receiver.  Kent starts filling out the paperwork while the officer talks to someone on the other end. “Yeah, I’m here with a visitor for Sergeant Brennan. Kent Parson. Yeah, from the Aces. I know, right?” he chuckles. “Yeah, I’ll wait. Thanks.”

He puts his hand over the mouthpiece. “We were at the Aces-Caps game a few months ago.  Honestly, you’re the guy we love to hate, but I had to respect that hat trick of yours.”

Kent gives a mix of professional smile and smug smirk.  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

The officer looks like he’s about to say something else when he seems to hear something on the phone. “So we’re all set then?  Great. Thanks again. Bye.” He reaches for Kent’s paperwork. “I gotta go in the back to run this, and then I’ll get your visitor pass.”

He disappears through a door in the back, returning a few minutes later with a printed name tag.  “Here you go,” he says, handing it to Kent. He takes out a paper map of the hospital and circles one of the buildings. “Just ask at the front desk and they’ll tell you where to go from there.  I hope your friend’s out of here soon.”

Kent nods.  “Me too. Thanks for all your help.”

The campus is easy to navigate, and Kent finds the building without trouble.  As promised, someone at the front desk directs him to Dan’s room. After a seemingly interminable elevator ride and walk down the hall, he’s finally there. He pauses in the doorway, takes a deep breath, and steps inside.

Dan’s in the bed, legs--leg--stretched out in front of him under a blanket.  There’s a dip in the bedsheets where there shouldn’t be, past Dan’s knees, the fabric lying flat on the mattress.  Dan’s right arm is bandaged to the point that his skin is only visible in a few areas where it peeks out. He has cuts on his face ranging from the tiny scratches by his temple to the inches-long wound running from behind his ear down the side of his neck, held closed with black stitches.  He is bruised everywhere to some degree. There are staples visible on his scalp in the areas where his hair sticks out of place. He is an absolute mess. He is alive.

Kent had spent the morning thinking about what he was going to say to Dan, but now, he says the first thing that comes to mind. “Did you miss me?”

Dan looks toward Kent, his brow furrowed. “I’m sorry,” he says slowly, “Do I know you?”

Kent’s jaw drops and he quickly tries to compose himself.  Susan had said ‘head injury’ earlier, but he hadn’t been prepared for this.  His heart is racing and his chest feels tight. He needs to find someone, a nurse, anyone. “I--” he stammers, “Excuse me--I’ll be right--” He turns toward the door, fighting back tears.

“Kenny, wait!” Dan calls behind him and Kent whirls around. “I’m sorry--I thought it would be--I’m an idiot.”

Kent practically runs across the room, pulling Dan into his arms, loosening only when he feels Dan wince.  “You asshole,” he whispers, crying, this time out of relief. “At least your shitty sense of humor’s still here.”

Dan’s stubble scratches against Kent’s neck as he pulls away.  “How did you even get here?” he asks, pushing Kent’s bangs to the side and brushing a finger down the side of his face. “I only got here like, a half hour ago.”

“It’s a long story, and I’ll explain after I get about twelve more hours of sleep.” Kent burrows against Dan again, bringing his legs up onto the bed, trying to get as close as possible.  “I missed you.”

“Missed you too, babe.”  Dan puts an arm around Kent, pressing him to his side.  After a second, he pulls away and looks Kent up and down, a puzzled expression on his face.  “Where did you get a Falconers shirt?”

Kent looks down at the logo, then back up. “Borrowed it from a friend.”

“Looks good on you.”

“Speaking of which.” Kent gets off of the bed. “I gotta charge my phone--there are a bunch of people who’ll want to know that I made it here.”

When his phone finally turns on, it’s flooded with messages, from Jack, the guys, Susan.  He takes a selfie with Dan flashing a thumbs-up and sends it to everyone. The group chat is full of well-wishes from everyone, and Kent worries a little less about going back after his rushed coming out.  Jack’s message is brief, but followed by a smiley emoticon.

“Geez, did you tell everyone you know about me?” Dan beckons Kent back onto the bed.

“Maybe.”  Fitting himself in beside Dan again, Kent puts his arm around his boyfriend’s chest. “The team knows about us now, by the way.”

“That’s great.” Dan kisses the top of Kent’s head.  There’s a few beats of silence before he adds, softly, “I love you.”

Kent lifts his head enough to kiss Dan on the cheek. “Love you, too.  It’s good to have you back.”


End file.
